Lyrical Ballds – How to prepare for essays

There are only a few topics, in various guises, which can come up in the forthcoming examination, and you will have a choice of two.

Below are ten possible “key terms” – two of which will come up in some form. Of course, it’s esssential that you tailor your answer to the question asked, but you can prepare beforehand what 5/6 paragraphs you could write for each question type.

1. Sympathy For Human Suffering

… suffering of women

… the outcast in Romantic Poetry

… the repression of children

… nature looks after the weak and downtrodden

… effects of modern society – the city, industrialisation, enclosure etc. – “The Dungeon”

2. The Power of Nature

… as a moral guide

… versus education / book learning – expostulation and reply & others

… as a state of innocence

…versus the corruption of society

… as a source of poetic inspiration

… representing freedom – versus the enclosed estates and the prisons of the cities

3. Corrupt Nature of Authority

… parental authority – the idiot boy

… imposition of rationality – Anecdote for Fathers, We Are 7

… Acts of Enclosure & Industrialisation

… We Are 7 – subjective over objective

… support the French Revolution’s “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood”

4. “Romantic”

… opposed to the narrow approach of reason and logic / the enlightenment (the idea that sceince and reason will solve all our problems)

… feeling and subjectivity before reason and objective description of the world

… support the French Revolution’s “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood”

… abreak with the poetry of the past (Augustan) – a revolutionary stylistic approach and more “ordinary”, everyday themes and subject

… concerned with the “common man” – his plight/repression

… a poetry to be read by all, not just a select few – the language of the common man…

5. Ideal Of Childhood / State of Innocence

… children at one with nature

… grey haired men – how adults impose their outlook on children

… effect of learning on youth

… versus the conceits of poets – Nightingale

… the “idiot boy” safe with nature

… We Are 7 – subjective over objective

6. Revolutionary

… politically radical – seeking changes to society

… subjective feeling before objective state of the world

… a break with the poetry of the past (augustan)

… in the language of the “common man”

… on the side of the common man and the outsider

… support the French Revolution’s “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood”

… society as a prison – “The Dungeon”

7. The Imagination

… versus the passive “fancy” – how can the imagination be “active”

… versus literary convention in “The Nightingale”

… primacy of subjective knowledge

… in the service of social change and revolution

… psychological journey of the Ancient Mariner

… providing sustenance for the poet – Tintern Abbey

… assistance to “The Convict”?

8. The Common Man

… the language of the common man

… on the side of the common man and the outsider

… women as the emitome of the repressed masses

… at one with nature

… Acts of Enclosure & Industrialisation

… the child as the idealsied state / version of the common man

9. “Mankind Is Born Free, But Everywhere He Is In Chains.”

… “The Dungeon” as a simple analogy for modern society

… the prison of rational thought…

… support the French Revolution’s “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood”

… how nature can provide release

… Acts of Enclosure & Industrialisation

… women, outsiders and convicts…

It is now simply a matter of looking through the poems in the collection to locate quotations for each paragraph which will be the starting point for your analysis – and this is where you begin to really pick up the marks.

Also, you will need to show that you understand the social, political and historical context in which the Lyrical Ballads were written. Look over your notes and the notes on this site.

But it’s not a history essay. You are first and foremost analysing how these pomes work as poems, what techniques are being used, what language is being used, and what the poets hope to achieve in each poem and in the whole collection.

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Lyrical Ballds – How to prepare for essays

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